A prayer of the Church · its history

Te Deum

The great hymn of praise and thanksgiving of the Latin Church — sung at the end of Matins and on solemn occasions of thanksgiving. Ancient, its authorship long debated: the pious legend of Ambrose and Augustine at the font, and the attribution modern scholarship favours, Nicetas of Remesiana.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

The prayer

We praise thee, O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee: the Father everlasting. To thee all Angels cry aloud: the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim: continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty: of thy glory.

Patristic before A.D. 750
387
Event
The legend of Augustine's baptism

A cherished tradition holds that Ambrose and Augustine composed and sang the Te Deum alternately, extempore, on the night of Augustine's baptism. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes this account "can be traced back to the end of the eighth century" — long after the event, and marks it as legend rather than history.

400
Event
The attribution to Nicetas of Remesiana

Among the names to which the hymn has been ascribed, modern scholarship has increasingly favoured Nicetas, Bishop of Remesiana (in present-day Serbia), a contemporary of Ambrose.

502
Event
In the Rule of St. Caesarius

The hymn — under its opening words, Te Deum Laudamus — appears by name in the Rule of St. Caesarius of Arles for monks, its earliest known title, giving firm witness to its use in the early sixth century.

1,411 years pass — nothing from this stretch is hosted yet
Modern 1900 – 1953
1913
A.D.
1907–1914
“But neither to Hilary nor to Ambrose may the hymn be prudently ascribed, because although both composed hymns, the Te Deum is in rhythmical prose, and not in the classical metres of the hymns known to have been written by them.”
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.